Seven Crows
by andromeda's song
Summary: "One crow for sorrow. Two crows for joy. Three crows for a girl. Four crows for a boy. Five crows for silver. Six crows for gold. Seven crows for a secret that's never, ever told." A series of one-shots based upon this rhyme, some Johnlock, some not. Some fluff, some not. Some angst...well you get the idea (Genres are... flexible. See inside for individual warnings.)
1. One Crow

**The idea for this fic (a collection of one-shots) came from a rhyme that a friend told me. **

**One crow for sorrow**

**Two crows for joy**

**Three crows for a girl**

**Four crows for a boy**

**Five crows for silver**

**Six crows for gold**

**Seven crows for a secret that's never, ever told. **

**:) Oooooh. Read, review, and enjoy!**

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**One Crow (from Sherlock's POV)**

I didn't expect them to mourn.

Well… I expected Mrs. Hudson to mourn me, and I expect that she'd even be happy if I was pocking the wall again with bullets just to know that I was back in 221 B. Mrs. Hudson and I have a unique relationship and I'd even go as far to say that the woman fancies me as an adopted son of sorts. To be completely honest, I rather enjoy that. Some of it is my own maudlin need to be recognised, and god love the woman, she does know how to dote upon me. Did know how. Does know how? How does one refer to oneself when you're technically dead? When you've taken the plunge in front of god and everyone?

Well, not everyone. Just…the one… the one person.

I hadn't really expected that Lestrade would mourn me like he did. After my death I had to wait for a week or two for some falsified paperwork to clear so that I could be on my way to Stockholm (of all places) to begin the search for the other spiders in Moriarty's web. I travelled back and forth between kipping with Mycroft and Molly, the only two people from my life to know that I was alive. Am alive. I'd taken to putting on disguises and observing my…friends and colleagues from respectable distances. Lestrade had been…puzzling. He'd taken a few days off from the Yard and from what I observed spent most of it holed up in his house. He met with John and Mrs Hudson in the evenings for suppers and went out with John on Thursdays for a pint or four. I suppose this might have been some sort of…coping mechanism. I hadn't figured Lestrade as being particularly sentimental toward me.

To be fair, I underestimated the sentiment that these people felt toward me.

Take Sergeant Donovan, for example. After three days holed up at Mycroft's I was antsy and so I dyed my hair and put on a false nose and some glasses and caught up with some of the Yarders at a crime scene. I was standing on the other side of the tape, pretending to be a nosy onlooker when I saw Donovan emerge from the victim's flat. She looked… a bit not good. The circles under her eyes were darker than normal. She had sores on her nostrils from the abrasion of cheap tissues. Every now and again she would cast a glance around the scene as if she were searching for someone in particular. When she didn't find that someone, her eyes would glaze over for the briefest of moments before she'd shake her head and get back to work. What was even more curious was what I overheard when Anderson approached her. She'd told him… "Gods, I miss him! I didn't even like him that much and I thought… I knew he was crazy as a loon. But I didn't expect him to… do that. No one deserves that… not even Sherlock Holmes."

I had to admit that Sherlock Holmes agreed with her.

Molly mourned me even though she knew I was still alive. She mourned me even though I had spent at least a week total sleeping on her couch and drinking tea with her in her kitchen. Molly's mourning was different. She was carrying my secret…the darkest secret. I've always trusted Molly and now I had to trust her even further as she interacted with our friends and colleagues on a daily basis. Molly mourned me for the sake of the others. I have no doubt that her sorrow was real…because Molly can be so terribly sentimental sometimes. Watching our friends in their grief over my death was hard for her because she knew the truth. She knew that she could ease their sadness with just two words and the temptation must have been extraordinary.

Especially when John came to visit.

I figured John would mourn me. He was my best friend and I think it's fair to say that I was his best friend as well. Am his best friend. Do you still get to call yourself someone's friend after you've faked your own death in front of them, even if it was to protect them? At first, I feared that John's PTSD and his memories of watching friends die in Afghanistan would trigger some sort of…collapse in John's psyche. The man is strong and damn it all if he didn't hold himself together very well in the face of danger…but this was different. I'd stepped off a building while he watched me. I don't even think that's something a trained ex-soldier just gets over in a few months, especially one who came back from war already cracked slightly. I feared that my actions might just have pushed John to the brink. But…as I have been many times before, I was wrong about John Watson. There were no tearful outbursts… no dramatic sobbing or anything like that. That wasn't John's way. He was much more subtle than that.

In some cases, that made it worse.

I watched John's mourning from afar, relying on Mycroft's careful surveillance and my own observations when I could afford to be in London. I saw that in the place of dramatic outbursts, depression, and frequent sobbing sessions that typically accompanied mourning, there was instead a quiet, loyal grief. He went back to his useless therapist, Ella, to deal with the nightmares that had resurged with a vengeance. His limp came back, although I was grateful to note that it wasn't bad enough to bring back the cane. John soldiered on…he went back to work after a few weeks, picking up extra shifts since he no longer had to follow me around. He went out with Lestrade to the pubs on Thursdays. He ate dinner with Mrs Hudson almost every night. Sometimes he met Molly for coffee. It was all terribly normal behaviour for the terribly normal John Watson. But this time… all of his activities were tinged with a shadow of sorrow that walked behind him like his own shadow. He smiled and laughed and told jokes again, but there was always something behind his eyes that was vacant. Not vacant… on pause, like he was waiting for me to emerge from the shadows and tell him what an awful joke it was. Like Donovan, he seemed to always be searching the crowds for someone… a person that he never found.

That filled me with more sorrow than I had expected.

I hadn't expected that I would mourn. Not myself, obviously, because I knew better than anyone that I was still alive. But I mourned nonetheless, and the object of my bereavement was my old life. The thrill of travelling the globe incognito in order to track down a vicious network of criminals satiated me, but there was a different type of hunger that gnawed at my insides. I missed home. I missed John and lazy Sunday mornings with tea and the full English breakfasts he'd force on me. I missed the way he'd read bits of the newspaper to me when I didn't have cases to work on. I longed to hear Mrs Hudson's "yoo-hoo!" coming from the landing as she brought up food or a client. I longed for the comfort of 221 B and all the bits of home—like the skull or my microscope and my violin. I would have loved to have been back in London on a case with John and Lestrade...hell, even Donovan and Anderson.

As I stood in the middle of a field in northern Italy on a cloudy Tuesday in November, I mourned for my… my family and their absence from my life through this self-imposed exile. I let the sorrow I felt for my friends fill me up. It hurt, but I knew that what they were feeling was much worse. This would be my penance and my provocation to finish what I had started.

Overhead, a single crow took flight and I watched its sleek, black wings disappear into the steely sky. One crow for sorrow.


	2. Two Crows

Two Crows for Joy

As the sun began to sink slowly in the western sky, golden rays of light shone down and illuminated the quiet valley, painting a façade of dazzling oranges and pinks upon the dusky emerald green of the grass and the trees. A soft summer breeze whispered through foliage as the crickets took up their bows for an evening of chirping, accompanied by the peeps of the frogs. The shadows began to hover at the edge of the serene picture, waiting to steal away the light and bathe the landscape in the comforting dusk.

John Watson stood in the cool grass outside the small cottage, working his bare toes into the earth and revelling in the feel. You couldn't do this in London, he thought. He inhaled the air that was scented with heather and damp soil and felt a frisson of pure delight wriggle down his spine. No matter how much man adapted to living with industry and technology and modernism, there was something so fundamentally right about communing with the earth.

John ran a hand through his ash-coloured hair and paused to listen for the tell-tale hum that usually hung around the valley these days. Ah…there it was. John smiled and reached over to pick up his cane where he had propped it against the gate. He surveyed the valley before him once more, allowing the serenity to fill him from the inside out, and then began to walk to the opposite side of the cottage, towards the garden and Sherlock's hives.

Even in his retirement, the detective could not bear to be anything other than busy. In the years that had led up to him finally deciding to retire, Sherlock had never lost his zeal for solving crimes. It was the cruellest crime to him that his body could not keep up with his brain. Even as his mind continued to work like a well-oiled machine of carefully balanced insanity, his physical frame could no longer endure foot chases through the streets of London, much to his irritation. John thought back to the day that Sherlock had decided to retire.

"_I think it's time that I retire, John." _

_John choked into his teacup and fixed his long-time friend and flatmate with a raised eyebrow. "Pardon?" he asked. _

_Sherlock had scoffed and gone back to the sheet music he was scribbling. "You know I hate repeating myself, John." _

"_Oh really?" John remarked with a touch of sarcasm. "I'm aware of that, genius. But I just thought I'd never hear those words coming out of your mouth." _

"_Hmph," Sherlock grunted. "I believe it's the logical next step, John. After that… farcical incident on the case last week, I've been thinking about it as a legitimate career move." _

_John laughed. The incident in question happened at the crime scene they visited last week. An unusually cold spell had rumbled through London, leaving a wake of icy streets and a light dusting of snow. Sherlock had slipped on a patch of black ice and taken a rather nasty tumble right in front of all the Yarders. He'd not only suffered a great amount of embarrassment, but had also cricked his back rather badly and twisted his ankle. Detective Inspector Bradford (an extremely competent underling of Lestrade's who had moved up to fill his shoes when he retired) had helped the detective up and sent him home with John to get his ankle wrapped. _

"_You do realise that could have happened twenty years ago when you first started this, right? In fact, I'm pretty sure I recall this exact incident happening more than once in the time we've been solving crimes," John said. _

"_I know." John tilted his head in question as he heard the tone in Sherlock's voice change ever so slightly. He was staring at the sheet music but his hand had stilled. _

"_What?" John asked quietly. _

_Sherlock favoured him with a genuine smile that was touched at the edges with sadness. "I'm getting older, John."_

"_It happens to the best of us," John said with a chuckle, pulling on the strands of his ashy hair for emphasis. _

_Sherlock smiled, fingering the dark curls that were shot through with streaks of silver. "All good things must come to end, I suppose. Isn't that what they say?" _

"_It is," John mused. They lapsed into a long silence while they each sifted through their thoughts. At least ten minutes had passed before John spoke again. _

"_Are you sure this is what you want?" John asked. _

"_Not at all," Sherlock replied without hesitation. "But it's what I'm going to do." _

_John nodded his affirmation and went back to his novel and his tea with a satisfied smile on his face. _

"_I think I'd like to keep bees," Sherlock murmured. _

John smiled with the fondness of memory as he trudged towards the apiaries kept by his partner, spotting the man himself- wrapped in a protective cocoon of linen and netting—moving back and forth between hives. Sherlock was not only harvesting the honey and the wax (the honey for them and the wax for experiments), but he was also studying their colonisation behaviours. He was planning on writing a treatise.

As John got closer, he took a moment to recall the day that Sherlock had asked him to come and live with him in the countryside. He'd been simultaneously surprised and not surprised; they'd been working together and living together for many years in London. John had married once and moved to Kensington, but his wife had died of cancer some years later, much to his sorrow. Since that time, Sherlock had been gracious enough to offer his Baker Street lodgings back to him and John had gone back without question. No matter what the circumstances of his life, John never felt more at home than he did at Baker Street with Sherlock Holmes.

And of course, John had gone with him. John had always gone with Sherlock and only the inevitable meeting with Death would stop him from doing so. Knowing that, the two had taken their belongings and bid farewell to London, ignoring Mycroft's good-natured ribbing about them moving together. Their relationship in those years after had melted into something that was intrinsically indescribable. It was a friendship, for sure, but the word friendship did not even come close to what passed between them. It was something so much deeper and so much better than friendship.

John was tempted to call it a meeting of soul mates. The idea that a soul mate was strictly a romantic partner was for one, ludicrous and antiquated. A soul mate was not restricted to only romantic love. But they loved nonetheless. John Watson loved Sherlock Holmes with a love that would never be found in the sentimental poetry of lore. It was a love that resonated from the very core of his being and filled him with such joy. It was a love that could only be suited to the doctor and the detective…the soldier and the madman…the heart and the brain.

And what was even better was that John knew he was loved in the same capacitance by Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, the man who loved no one (except for the late Mrs Hudson, perhaps), loved John Watson. There had been no discussions; no metaphysical identity crises from the shorter one, no protestations from the tall one. Sherlock did not _need_ John Watson by his side… but he _wanted_ him to be there. It filled John with joy to know that he was a desire of Sherlock Holmes. And now they were living out their retirement in the English countryside together. Sherlock kept bees and did experiments and wrote scientific treatises. John kept the garden and was working on a novel compilation of their greatest adventures. They answered to no one except themselves and it was glorious.

John's attention was pulled out of his musings when he heard Sherlock's exuberant baritone calling his name. John smiled and gave a little wave. Sherlock replaced the combs he'd pulled out and walked over to meet the doctor, removing his hat and gloves as he did so.

"John!" the man cried. "You should see the activity happening in Hive 13, it's brilliant! A new queen has just ascended the throne."

"Oh, poor Annabelle," John cried with a nudge and a wink. He'd taken part in Sherlock's beekeeping by naming all the queens (it was the only way he could keep track of them).

Sherlock shot him an exasperated look, but it soon morphed into a smile. "It's precisely what I needed, John. This will conclude that portion of my treatise on hive politics."

John grinned and fixed his eyes on the detective-turned-beekeeper. He didn't necessarily believe in fate or destiny or things of the sort, but he vehemently thanked whatever force had driven him into the path of Sherlock Holmes. The man was a wonder, no matter his idiosyncrasies.

"You're thinking," Sherlock stated. "What are you thinking about?"

John looked away for a moment and took in the scene again. The sun's rays were vainly trying to stay up, gripping the top of the hillside behind the apiaries. The hum of the bees filled the air, accompanying the far-off chirps of the crickets. The summer breeze still wafted through the air, carrying the scents of heather and lilac to them. Sherlock stood beside him, donned in the beige linens of his trade, his dark curls highlighted with streaks of silver. The unearthly grey-green eyes were softer than usual, framed by gentle crow's-feet, and filled with a content satisfaction that John had grown to adore in the past years. Everything was in harmony, and for once, neither one of them missed the excitement of their adrenaline-filled, dangerous lives. This life was just as exciting, if only you knew where to look. It was joyous.

John stepped forward and snugged the arm that wasn't holding his cane around Sherlock's still thin waist. He leaned into his soul mate and breathed deep, smiling as he felt Sherlock's arm come up and wrap around his shoulders without hesitation. John felt Sherlock hum with satisfaction, the pitch only a few steps higher than the grumble of the bees near them. They stayed like that until dusk settled around them, nestled in each other's embrace and at peace.


	3. Disclaimer

**Hi there. I... felt moved to add this disclaimer to this work based on the chapter that is following. I just feel like I need to explain this so bear with me, please.**

**Okay, so let's talk about Johnlock for a moment. Here's what you have to understand about my position on Johnlock; I don't _actually_ ship John and Sherlock in the show. I just don't…if they wrote it into the show, I'd still watch it (duh) but it wouldn't be…the same. I read the entire ACD canon long before this show and though I _really_ like the way that the BBC spun the Holmes/Watson relationship, I guess I'm a little more of a purist; sue me. I sincerely appreciate their epic bromance and…I just think friendship of that calibre can be even more awesome than romance.**

**But Andromeda, you write Johnlock!**

**I do, because… I don't know! There's something so sweet about it sometimes, and I adore sweet things. There are some really wonderful Johnlock fics out there and you know, I like to read them because it's fluffy and I adore the fluff and it makes me feel good. (And some of you fellow-writers here have really NAILED this thing, I mean… wow, there are some amazing Johnlock fics out there that I couldn't match EVER.) As long as it's around I'm going to read it and I'm still going to write it. It's very therapeutic to write, personally, and I find the two characters really easy to write in that sort of affectionate way. (Honestly, when I write, I'm picturing some of the achingly good fanart that I see…not the actual duo of Cumberbatch and Freeman.) So even though I read it and write it…I don't actually ship it. It's a weird…duality of thought…and a little confusing (hence my need to voice my insecurities).**

**Bottom line: If it is your ship, I totally don't judge you. (See above about reading it AND writing it myself). I mean, look at what it's done; there are literally thousands of stories about it, and we've MADE THEM ALL UP. Ourselves. With our own freaking imaginations and that's beyond awesome to me. So if you ship Johnlock for real… go you. :) Personally, I will continue to write it just because… I can, and I like doing it. If you don't ship it, don't hate on those that do. We're all in this together. And if you're like me in the fuzzy in-between, grab a chair and a cocktail, let's talk (unless you're under 21, then just take a ginger ale…alcohol is bad for your brain).**

**That being said, I was watching the Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law version of Sherlock Holmes the other day and I was struck by the absolute badassery of Mary Morstan's character. For the love of god, Holmes threw her off a speeding train into a river (while she was on her way to Brighton for her honeymoon!) and she still stuck around and not only wasn't a jerk about it, she helped them bring down Moriarty as well by decoding the book. Likewise, ACD's original Irene Adler was also a badass and actually defeated Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia. So the chapter you're about to read is a tip of my hat to those strong female characters (and a nod to the adorable Amanda Abbington, who will be portraying Morstan in upcoming season three…even Johnlock shippers can't deny that having Martin Freeman's long-time girlfriend play Morstan is freaking adorable!).**

**Alright, now that's out of my system and you know where I'm coming from. Let me climb down off my soapbox and you can get back to this fic. Hopefully…I haven't thrown you off from my work. If I have… ta, it was nice to have you! If I haven't, well… on with you. ;-) And thank you for your support, as always. You give me strength.**


	4. Three Crows

Three Crows for a Girl

What a lot of people failed to understand is that Mary Watson liked Sherlock Holmes too.

She had married John Watson in the interim between the cases involving the hound in Dartmoor and the recovery of the Reichenbach painting, and to be completely fair, life was busy but blissful. John covered shifts at the surgery and chased criminals with Sherlock. Mary taught primary school and took over note-keeping for her husband's work with Sherlock. John had file after file of notes on Sherlock's cases, some electronic and some on paper. Mary would organise all the files so that John could catalogue the stories on his blog. It was oft times a haphazard chaos in their lives; but Mary and John belonged to each other. They loved each other with a calm and undemanding love, a bond wrought with mutual trust and respect and admiration. The fact that Sherlock nestled on the edges of their marriage was of no hardship to the two of them. He quite belonged there and was never a threat to their relationship, despite what the tabloids had to say.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mary had been taken away by John Watson from the very start. He was quietly charming and exceedingly polite, always ready with a bright grin and a sincere laugh. The doctor was witty, intelligent, generous, and perfectly charismatic in all the right ways. What was even better was that John seemed to be quite taken with Mary as well. Mary could sense that he took a certain amount of pride when he introduced her to his friends and his colleagues, even his sister Harry. When he proposed to her, there was an incredible amount of elation and an overwhelming approval and support from their respective circles.

Sherlock had been inherently distrustful of Mary at the beginning (to be fair, the last time a younger woman had interacted with him this closely, she'd drugged him and stole his coat…and was in sorts with a criminal mastermind…). At their first meeting, Sherlock had been polite, but distant. He then (at Mary's insistence) had deduced her to shreds; dredging up some old skeletons that Mary had never anticipated could be read by the calluses on her thumbs. It had gotten Sherlock in trouble with John and that always made the detective sullen, and so he fairly snarled at Mary each time they interacted. But Mary was a genuinely cheerful and likeable person and had made it her personal goal to win over Sherlock Holmes, a task which amused John to no end.

It was probably during the first Christmas party to include Mary that she began to find her niche with Sherlock. The whole gang was there and John had made a point to invite Donovan and Anderson so that they could meet Mary. At one point, Anderson had made some kind of a snarky, backhanded comment to Sherlock (as he was wont to do) and Mary overheard. She'd risen to Sherlock's defence quietly and subtly and then called Anderson an "insufferable git" and a "twitchy tosser". Well… anyone who could land a half-decent insult on Anderson was alright in Sherlock's book. He'd gallantly offered her a cookie and another glass of mulled wine and like that, their relationship took a turn for the better.

Slowly, Mary became more of a fixture in the life of Watson and Holmes. She was well aware that the two men shared some kind of extraordinary bond (she might have even conceded to say soul mates). Mary was actually in awe of their relationship and how well they seemed to work together. Around Sherlock, Mary noticed that John was doubly attentive, sharp, and focused. He followed detective almost like a student follows his teacher (or more appropriately, like a Padawan follows his Jedi, since Sherlock's mind tricks were sometimes nothing short of magic).

But Mary also noticed how Sherlock was around John. Her husband's presence seemed to relax Sherlock and take the edge off his personality. The detective was a mite calmer and more polite in John's presence. And Mary had also noticed that John had a singular gift for helping the detective sort through whatever kind of static was buzzing in his brain so that he might more easily find solutions to their cases. It was a perfectly symbiotic relationship and Mary often wondered why there weren't more sociologists in 221 B studying this phenomenon.

Mary seemed to fit into the atmosphere around 221 B like a third wheel fits on a tricycle; that is to say, she offered balance and support and overall, more stability. She was level-headed and practical, but with enough quirks to keep John on his toes and Sherlock vaguely interested. She spoke sarcasm like a second language, especially around Sherlock (who was so damned literal), which made John laugh hysterically. She was enthusiastic and worked with children and always seemed to have glitter on her person somewhere. But make no mistake; she was strong enough to run with John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. The three of them lapsed into an easy friendship and she had never been more in love with John Watson.

Of course, nature loves balance. So all that happiness had to be accounted for somewhere.

When Sherlock had stepped off the roof of St. Bart's hospital and John had been made to witness the event, John had been devastated. Mary had been dealt a double blow through her own grief and the grief of her mourning husband. Mary could not fathom the move. Sherlock was not the type of person to commit suicide. He was far too convinced of his own self-worth for that…or so she thought. When John had told her about their last phone call, Mary had been stunned.

She was angry at first. She was angry that Sherlock had left them like that. However much Mary meant to John (and she meant quite a lot), Sherlock had been the person to heal John's war wounds and put temporary glue to his broken pieces. Mary had come along and strengthened the bond. But now that Sherlock was gone… Mary was left holding the pieces of her broken soldier, which she was more than willing to do. But she feared that this time the damage might be irreparable. John was strong…he was a doctor, an ex-soldier, and a consultant for Scotland Yard. But not even John Watson could watch his best friend step off a building and remain wholly intact.

And so Mary Watson picked up the pieces that Sherlock Holmes had shattered and kept them safe. Life moved forward…as it inevitably does. Mary and John had many wonderful adventures of their own, sharing laughs and meals and friends and the mutual connection that tied them together. They shared a love of Earl Grey tea, summer thunderstorms, Daschunds, and James Bond films. They had a fondness for dark chocolate and enjoyed the company of Greg Lestrade and Martha Hudson. They laughed and cried and argued and made up. They kissed and danced and sang and loved. They both lived the life they wanted to live with the people they wanted to live it with.

And they both missed a man named Sherlock Holmes.


	5. Four Crows

**Hi. :) So things have been super crazy busy around this here life of mine, and I've been ripping my brains out with a case of writer's block. Needless to say, things have been exciting, and I apologise for the wait time. Because things are picking up in my life (work, band, theatre), the time span in between updates is probably going to stretch out a little longer. **

**Have this fluffy...fluff as an apology. And a balm for all that ails you. :)  
**

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Four Crows for a Boy

The boy's name was Cecil and he was seven and a half years old. He was tall for his age and all limbs, lanky and uncoordinated. He had a mop of chestnut-coloured curls that hung to his chin and bright blue eyes that shone with a careful mix of caution and curiosity. He was always observing, taking in the sights and sounds around him and processing them.

Currently, he was fast asleep on the couch inside the walls of 221 B, with the shadow of a silent consulting detective watching him at a distance.

Cecil had been living with an abusive foster family in a squalid London flat with six other children. Sherlock had followed a lead on a homicide/drug trafficking case (a favour for Lestrade only, since the case barely broke a four or five) and it landed them on the stoop of Frank and Celia Jones. When they'd entered the flat, they had discovered the pair of adults missing and the seven malnourished children huddling in the dark.

In the hustle that followed as the children were removed and separate forces divvied up to search for the whereabouts of the Jones', Sherlock had taken notice of the one child who seemed to be different than the other starving urchins. Whereas his foster brothers and sisters were quite vocal and chatting eagerly with the policemen and the medics surrounding them, this boy was sitting quietly, huddled under a blanket and watching everyone. When the boy's eyes had locked with Sherlock's, a silent exchange seemed to take place between them. John watched it like a tennis match.

"What is it, Sherlock?" John murmured when the boy finally broke the eye contact and looked away.

"The boy," Sherlock muttered back. Without another word, Sherlock strode over to the boy and crouched in front of him. John followed behind, watching the second silent interaction between the two. The boy looked up through unkempt chestnut curls as John approached, and neither the doctor nor the detective missed the slight movement from the boy as he leaned away from the new face.

John felt his heart lurch for the child and assumed the same position on the ground as Sherlock. The boy followed his movements with sharp blue eyes and swallowed visibly. John held up a placating hand.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."

The boy stared at John and then flicked his eyes back to Sherlock, who nodded imperceptibly. The child relaxed visibly and John exhaled a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

"Can I ask you what your name is?" John asked.

It was Sherlock that answered. "You can ask, John, but I'm afraid he will not be able to say."

John shot his flatmate a look. "Why not?" The boy had been responding to sounds, so he wasn't deaf or hard of hearing. His physical examination hadn't turned up any malformation or injury that prevented speech.

"He's a selective mute," Sherlock replied. He held out a hand and John watched as the boy offered his wrist to the detective. There was a pale blue band around it with small white letters etched around it that read "selective mutism: break the silence". John nodded in understanding. Selective mutism was a phenomenon he'd encountered in his intern rotations during med school but not since then.

John pulled out the small notebook he carried with him on cases and flipped to an empty page. He handed the book and a pen to the boy without a word. The boy looked at John for a moment before accepting the tablet and the pen. He scratched away at it for a minute or so before flipping it around for the two men to read.

"My name is Cecil. I'm seven and a half."

John was surprised when Sherlock smiled a genuine smile for the boy—Cecil—and said, "Hello, Cecil. My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is Doctor John Watson." John smiled and it encompassed both his pleasure in communicating with the boy and his pride at Sherlock's politeness.

Cecil went back to scribbling on the notebook. When he held it up again, it read,

"Please, what's going to happen to me?"

John and Sherlock shared a look. _We have to do something, John. I know, Sherlock, but what? _Sherlock looked back at Cecil, murmuring, "Please excuse us for a moment, Cecil." He stood and John followed as the detective paced away from the ambulance until they were out of earshot of Cecil but the boy was still in sight. Sherlock was anxiously wringing his hands together.

"Sherlock," John said. "What…what do you want to do?" There were times when John questioned Sherlock; his thoughts, his motives, his deductions, his actions. But there were times when Sherlock assumed a particular bright gleam in his eye and a conviction so strong that it rolled off him in waves like a tangible spirit and it was during those times that John only stepped in to ask his partner what he wanted.

Sherlock's lips thinned in thought and his hands worked. "He can't go back to the foster system, John. It's not a good place for children like Cecil…he runs the risk of going to a family like this one again. I can't… I can't let that happen."

Curious. John knew that Sherlock took a particular vexation to cases that involved children in any way, especially if they were the victims. In Sherlock's mind, crimes against children were the most heinous of all. Children were blank slates and could be moulded into bright, competent creatures given the right circumstances and upbringings. Sherlock (and John, for that matter) could never understand why anyone would want to harm the most fragile existences in the species. But what made Cecil so special? Sherlock was taking a deeper interest in the boy…enough for him to brainstorm a solution to a problem that hadn't even existed only half an hour prior.

Sherlock was watching his friend with a knowing look. "I understand your curiosity, John. I will explain my…interest in the boy later. I promise… but now we need to do something to make sure he finds… shelter."

"Why don't we take him tonight?" John said. "We can take him home and give him a bath and food… and he can stay with us while Mycroft finds him an adoptive family. Would that be acceptable?" If you were going to have the British government as your elder brother, you might as well take advantage of it.

Sherlock's face split into a wide grin. "That's a wonderful solution, John!" he crowed. The detective bent to kiss John's cheek and then went dashing off, presumably to find Lestrade and the other authorities to tell him what he intended to do for Cecil. John rubbed his cheek fondly and felt a slight blush rise. He shook his head in affection and walked over to sit with Cecil. The boy watched his approach with a neutral expression, but John thought he recognised the gleam in the boy's eyes. He'd seen it so many times in the eyes of a certain consulting detective.

"You're going to come home with Sherlock and me, alright?" John asked. "You can stay with us for a while."

Cecil jotted a question on the notebook he still held. "Will I stay forever?" The boy betrayed no emotion on his face, but John thought he could see the faintest glimmer of hope underneath. It broke his heart into jagged little pieces.

"I'm afraid not," John said. "But Sherlock's brother is going to find you a family." At Cecil's recoil in fear, John laid a gentle, steadying hand on the boy's shoulder and looked into his eyes.

"It'll be different, Cecil," John promised. "It will be a nice family and they will adopt you and raise you like their own. It will be different." Of course, there was no way he could predict that… but John knew that if they ever discovered that another family was misusing the child, there would be hell to pay.

Sherlock appeared at their side again with Lestrade in tow. Sherlock looked at Cecil and introduced Lestrade. "Cecil," he said, "this is Detective Inspector Lestrade. He just has to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?" Cecil eyed up the detective inspector for a moment before nodding and adjusting his grip on the pen and notebook. The detective inspector crouched in front of the boy and smiled. He asked Cecil a few questions, his name and age and where he lived before this house. When he was done with the questions, Lestrade smiled again and stood.

"Cecil, these two men are going to take you home with them for a few days." Lestrade fixed Sherlock and John each with a look that was mingled pride and warning. "Is that going to be okay with you?"

Cecil nodded without hesitation and the doctor and the detective shared a small smile. With the boy's acceptance, Lestrade granted the two men temporary custody of the boy and left to take care of the rest of the scene, only pausing to say in an undertone to Sherlock, "Take care of that boy, Sherlock."

000000000000000000

Sherlock watched Cecil where he was sleeping soundly on the couch, his mouth hanging open in a silent snore and one spindly arm draping forward off the side. The boy had bathed and eaten a hearty meal with John, conveying his thanks and his satisfaction on the notepad. He certainly seemed more relaxed now that he was away from all of the lights and sounds and cacophony of strangers, even gracing the two of them with a smile.

After the boy's belly had been filled with a nutritious meal, he'd collapsed on the couch in exhaustion and Sherlock had played him a soft lullaby on the violin. Cecil had drifted off into deep slumber with a tiny smile plastered on his face. Sherlock was watching him from his armchair, a thoughtful look gracing his features.

John entered the living room with two cups of tea, handing one to Sherlock before settling in his own chair. The two watched Cecil sleep for a few moments before Sherlock's low voice cut the silence.

"I'm not sure why this boy strikes my fancy, John," he stated. He looked from the boy down to his cup of tea and then back up to John's face. He had a rueful half-smile on his face and John found himself responding with a smile of his own. Sherlock ran a hand through his hair before continuing.

"There's just something… something I can't put my finger on that draws me to this child. At first I thought it was just the selective mutism." John raised an eyebrow and Sherlock shrugged. "It's a curious phenomenon and that's fascinating to me. But there was more than just that, John, and the more time I spend with Cecil, the more I find myself concerned for his well-being. I—I don't understand it, necessarily, but I just knew that I couldn't leave him there."

John watched his flatmate for a moment. "Perhaps Cecil is a kindred spirit," he offered. At Sherlock's raised eyebrow, he clarified. "You are the farthest thing from a selective mute, but… as a selective mute, Cecil has to observe people carefully. He doesn't like to talk or interact with people that much because most people don't understand the spectrum of anxiety disorders and the coping mechanisms like selective mutism. If he wants to understand the people around him, he has to watch them and observe them since he can't talk to them. Observing people is your thing…you are just more vocal about it." John wasn't sure whether that was a plausible explanation, but it worked in his mind.

It seemed to work for Sherlock as well, because he was slowly nodding. "I suppose that makes sense, John," he said.

"Finally, he agrees with me!" John chuckled. Sherlock rolled his eyes in exasperation.

0000000000000000

Four days later, Mycroft appeared on the threshold of 221 B with David and Nathalie Jacobson, the family that was to adopt Cecil. Mycroft had assured them of the Jacobson's merits; David was a professor of art history, Nathalie a British Sign Language interpreter. Nathalie herself was deaf and both she and her husband were (obviously) fluent in sign. They were financially stable and neither had any sort of chequered past to speak of. It seemed to be a perfect match for the young Cecil.

The child himself was hesitant to reach out to the Jacobson's at first, choosing to tuck himself into Sherlock's lap and stay curled there with the detective's protective arms around him (a sight which caused Mycroft to raise his brow, which was the equivalent to a full-throated shout). But when Nathalie began to sign to her husband, Cecil perked up in interest, watching the silent exchange with interest. Sherlock shared a knowing look with John.

In the end, David and Nathalie won Cecil over (especially with the promise of a language that didn't involve actual speech). When the boy stood at the threshold with his new family, John found that his heart was aching a little at the sight of Cecil ready to leave them. His presence at their flat had been a silent one, but he was a charming boy and everyone at 221 Baker Street found themselves enchanted with him. Cecil turned around and regarded his temporary guardians with a face that was both sad and happy. David crouched down and whispered something in the boy's ear, showing him a hand gesture after. Cecil mimicked the sign and then faced John and Sherlock.

With a small smile on his face, Cecil signed "thank you" and then left with the Jacobsons, Mycroft following them out. John carried empty cups and saucers to the kitchen. He found something new pinned to the fridge and upon reading it, called out for Sherlock.

"What is it?" Sherlock asked, stepping into the kitchen.

John, instead of answering, held up a picture that Cecil had drawn. The pencilled drawing showed the tall, curly-haired detective in his long coat, the doctor in a red jumper, and Cecil standing in between them. All three were holding magnifying glasses and wearing huge smiles. Sherlock stared at the picture and then at John, who had a wistful smile on his face. He swore he felt his heart swell with something akin to affection and he wrapped an arm around John's shoulders and they stood together and studied the drawing for many long minutes.

They made sure the picture stayed on the fridge for many years to come.

* * *

**Selective mutism is a thing. I had a student with selective mutism once, and that's how I became aware. If you'd like to know more about it, I highly recommend some research on the subject. It's not a speech impairment or a cognitive disorder. Many children with selective mutism actually possess above average intelligence. **

**Part five should be up in a few days or so. I'm also working on another one-shot and two collaborative stories (yay!) that should be getting underway very soon. :) Until next time, lovelies. **


	6. Five Crows

**Hello, everyone. :) So, I don't exactly remember the last time we spoke, so if it's been a while, you have my sincerest apologies. If it hasn't been a while, well then welcome and good to see you again. **

**Let's get this road on the show, shall we?**

* * *

Five Crows for Silver

Have you ever had this feeling in your gut that something isn't quite right, even though you can't pinpoint exactly what is wrong? It kind of feels like a weight sitting somewhere in between your heart and your liver like a piece of lead. Sometimes it stirs up unexplainable butterflies in your stomach and you can't remember or imagine why you've got them. You are constantly looking over your shoulder for the person that's never there even though you can feel their eyes on you. Your brain feels buzzy with a buried tension that you can't give a name to.

That's how John had been feeling for several days, and it was starting to make him very edgy.

John surmised that this vague dread buried deep in his brain had something to do with the fact that Sherlock had been acting very strange as of late. And to say Sherlock was acting strange is of course a misnomer because Sherlock is always a little strange. But in the past few days, he had been acting strangely even for his standards. It had started with the milk.

John had come home from the clinic with a dreadful migraine and a slight crust of vomit still on his shoes where a grown man had enthusiastically (and later apologetically) been sick on him. He had climbed the steps to 221 B and made it inside the door, longing for a nice cuppa and a handful of aspirin. As he shut the door behind him, a sudden thought struck him. They were out of milk. Again.

John sighed in frustration but slunk into the kitchen anyway. He started up the kettle and dug a mug out of the cupboards just as he heard a muffled thump coming from upstairs. Ah, so Sherlock was home. The detective had converted John's old bedroom into a lab since John himself was… no longer in need of a separate bedroom. John smiled a little despite his raging headache as he reached for the box of tea, plucking a pyramid of the bergamot scented leaves and tossing it into his cup. The kettle whistled at him and he poured the boiling water into the cup. As he set the kettle back down, he instinctually opened the fridge for milk, realising too late that there wouldn't be—

A container of milk stared back at him from inside the fridge. John frowned and shut the door, waited a minute, and then opened it up again. There it was… the milk. John slowly grasped the container and pulled it out, opening it and pouring it into his tea. When he turned around to replace it in the fridge, he saw Sherlock standing at the threshold of the kitchen, the man watching him with an upturned eyebrow.

"You got the milk," John stated.

The detective snorted. "Obviously, John. You just poured it into your tea."

A sudden thought struck John. "What did you put into it?" he asked with a tone of suspicion in his voice.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Honestly, John…" He frowned at his partner and said, "There's nothing in the milk, John. Why must you be so suspicious? And don't say because of the sugar in Dartmoor," he interjected as John opened his mouth. "There was nothing in the sugar."

"I wasn't going to mention the sugar," John retorted. "I was going to apologise and say thank you for getting the milk."

Sherlock blinked. "Oh. Right, of course… well." He cleared his throat and stepped over to the doctor, sliding his long arms around John's waist and bending his head to kiss him soundly on the lips.

"Welcome home, then," Sherlock said as he pulled back, placing a kiss to John's nose as he went.

Now, this may not seem like atypical behaviour for flatmates (even flatmates-turned-something-more-than-flatmates). And even Sherlock bloody Holmes was fully capable of going to the shops and picking up a carton of milk. But normally, the man was so caught up in all the goings-on in his life that he couldn't be arsed to do it. A carton of milk or a tin of beans could never stand up to a triple homicide or an experiment on lactic acid levels in leg tissue or the darkened recesses of his mind palace. It was never the fact that he couldn't do the shopping, but merely a matter of the fact that it was such a mundane task that he could come up with almost five alternative ideas to avoid it. So the fact that Sherlock had gone out of his way to pick up some milk (and some other items) was… well, it made John wary.

In the weeks following the milk incident, John took care to observe Sherlock's actions more carefully. Perhaps the man had accidentally swallowed one of his own damned experiments and was succumbing to a reagent that was slowly melting his brain. And so the days passed and Sherlock was Sherlock in all his manic glory; he went to crime scenes, deduced, argued with Anderson, ran around London, performed experiments, kissed John, antagonised Mrs Hudson, and all other manners of Sherlockian normality.

But there were also isolated incidences of Sherlockian abnormality that were not totally insane, but just enough out of character that it made John stop and think, often when he was in the middle of something else, long after the incident had occurred. First off, they'd gone to a crime scene involving a rather bizarre stabbing and discovered that one of the new crime scene technicians had accidentally dropped a bag of evidence in a pool of blood after being startled by a mouse. Sherlock noticed and instead of cursing out the young man for contaminating the crime scene, he instead went over and informed him about the standard operating procedures in a calm but firm voice. Anderson had yelled at him more than Sherlock had, a fact that didn't escape notice.

Then, there was the infamous cake incident. It was Mrs Hudson's birthday and John wanted to hold a small celebration for her, a surprise party with just the two of them, Mycroft, Lestrade, and Mrs Turner. John had left for work that morning and instructed Sherlock to go to the shop and pick up a cake for her. Now, John knew that no matter how much Sherlock cared for Mrs Hudson, he wouldn't go to the shops for a cake, but he also knew that Sherlock wouldn't dare make a mess of her birthday. John figured that Sherlock would text Mycroft and Mycroft (or his assistant) would have something delivered for them. Therefore, John was shocked to come home and find Sherlock in the kitchen with an apron tied around his waist and a smudge of flour on his cheek. Sherlock was baking. And surprisingly, he was very good at it (it's all chemistry, John!) and the cake turned out beautifully. Mrs Hudson was delighted and it was marvellous.

And then one day, he came back to the flat looking very tense and wary, one hand clenched in the pocket of his jacket. He had ignored John where he sat in his armchair with the newspaper and swept up the stairs to his lab without even taking the coat off. When he'd come back downstairs, he'd only stopped to peck John on the cheek before taking up his violin and spending the rest of the afternoon swept up in a chaos of frenetic concertos. John had left after the impromptu concert had finished in order to meet up with Lestrade for drinks, where he confided in the detective inspector over his domestic issues.

"Sherlock always behaves oddly," Greg said. "How can you tell the difference between now and his usual shenanigans?"

John took a swallow of his pint and set the glass back down with a dull thunk. "That's what I'm saying, Greg. I don't know what it is, but something is off. I can't figure it out but I feel it in my gut. Something's… up." John frowned into his glass and then eased up and chuckled, turning to face the detective inspector.

"What?" Greg asked.

"We didn't come here so I could bother you with my domestics," John offered. "Let me buy the next round."

So they finished their drinks and kept an amiable and animated chatter going between them, eventually pulling the bartender into an exhaustive debate about global politics and rugby. John and Lestrade left the pub a short while after, John feeling satisfactorily buzzed and less stressed. They were only a couple of blocks from Baker Street and had walked over, so now they headed down the quiet streets.

"Thanks for this," John said. "That was fun."

Whatever Greg was going to say after that was interrupted by the simultaneous and insistent buzzing of their mobiles. John's flashed Mrs Hudson's number and Lestrade's was reflecting Sherlock's. The two men stared at one another for an instant before answering the ringing devices.

Mrs Hudson: "Oh John! There's some awful racket going on upstairs! It sounds like Sherlock's in trouble, you better hurry home, dear!"

Sherlock: "Lestrade! There's a man in—'''

John and Greg were running towards Baker Street almost immediately after, Greg shouting orders into his mobile to a Met squad. John was praying to the unseen deities that Sherlock would be able to hold off for a moment longer and thanking his stars that they weren't far from the flat.

They burst into 221 Baker Street moments later, John leading a charge up the stairs to 221 B, where the unmistakable sounds of a fight were issuing forth. John wrenched the door open and he and Lestrade dashed in to find Sherlock pinned on the floor, grappling with a hulking man who was wielding a long knife in one hand above his throat. Blood was coursing down Sherlock's hands and wrists from where he was gripping the steel and pushing it back.

Without thinking, John launched himself forwards and tackled the bear of a man from off Sherlock. He caught the intruder around the waist and they both were knocked over, with John landing solidly on top of the man. Lestrade shot forward and pulled Sherlock out from the fray as John began to wrestle with the stranger. Fists and legs were flying wildly and John, despite his rage, was overcome by the man's strength and overpowered by the stranger's additional height and weight. John found himself quickly pinned underneath and on the receiving end of meaty fists before he saw Sherlock and Lestrade dart forward in tandem to attack.

It was all a bit of a blur after that, considering that three grown men were trying to fight off one bulky intruder, who had fortunately lost the knife somewhere in the midst of the fray. Suddenly, there were more shouts as the Met arrived and then…it was over. The policemen subdued the man and half-dragged him out of the flat, leaving Sherlock, John, and Lestrade gasping on the floor with the promise of medics on the way. John, using the adrenaline that was still coursing through his veins, sat up and ignored his own injuries and crawled over to where Sherlock lay on the floor.

"Sherlock," he breathed as he positioned himself next to the detective. Sherlock opened his eyes and stared at John and then over to Lestrade, who had taken up a position on Sherlock's other side.

"John, Lestrade," Sherlock acknowledged, his voice low but breathy. "About time you showed up."

The doctor and the detective inspector stared back at him for a whole four seconds before all three of them burst into a fit of manic giggles, which confused the medic who had just bounded up the stairs and into their flat. They spent the next few minutes being patched up and checked out. Sherlock had some deep cuts on his hands, but they'd not needed any stitching (he insisted the knife had been very dull). He was also sporting some bruises and some rug burn on his lower back. Lestrade had a rather fantastic black eye and some small cuts on his hands. John was also bruised and had a rather nasty bite mark on his left arm.

"I'm going to need a tetanus injection," John muttered as he examined the bite.

Eventually the medics left them and the policemen started to file out after they'd gathered statements from Sherlock, John, Lestrade, and Mrs Hudson. According to Sherlock, the man had been the brother of the last criminal they'd captured. He'd apparently followed Sherlock home, waited for John to leave, and then went in hell-bent on exacting revenge (very tedious, he insisted). Sherlock had managed to figure out why he was there a split second before the man moved into action, using the spare seconds to call Lestrade. He'd reasoned that Mrs Hudson would hear the commotion and call John first, so it was only logical that he call Lestrade. Mrs Hudson herself had come up at some point through the hullabaloo and fussed over the three of them for a few minutes, leaving only when a policeman had come up to ask Sherlock for his statement. She'd pecked them all on the forehead and promised to bring some tea and biscuits round after the police left.

After the last officer left and the walls of 221 B were once again silent, the consulting detective, the detective inspector, and the doctor were all sitting on the couch, too tired to move and frankly not giving a damn that they were all squished together like brothers who had misbehaved and were forced to sit together until they got along. After a few minutes, Sherlock inhaled deeply and then slid off the sofa and kneeled on the floor in front of John. John watched him with a kind of weary wariness and even Lestrade abandoned his attempts to study his black eye in the reflection of his phone to watch Sherlock.

"John," Sherlock started, "you have to believe that I definitely had a better idea than this. But seeing as how a berserker Irishman could wander in here at any moment and off me, I really don't believe that I should wait any longer."

John raised his eyebrow. "Sherlock, what are you talking about?" Beside him, he heard Lestrade inhale sharply.

Sherlock reached into the pocket of his trousers with his bandaged hands and pulled out a small, black velvet box. John's heart stopped in his chest and he felt his mouth drop open on its own accord.

"Sherlock," he whispered.

Sherlock opened the box and inside there sat a plain dark silver band, thin and shiny even in the dim light. He turned his face up towards John and Lestrade chuckled but he ignored him. Sherlock took a deep breath and launched into it.

"John Watson, I'm a right smart pain in your arse. I drag you to crime scenes and on chases around London. I experiment on human body parts that I leave in our fridge. I sulk and brood and play the violin at completely inappropriate hours of the day. I—I put you in danger more times than I care to admit. Frankly, you're completely daft for sticking around. And yet…you do, and I find myself in awe of that. You're the best man I've ever known—no offense, Lestrade. You are the best thing that's ever happened to me, John Watson. I—I love you with every particle of my being. It would be my great honour if you would marry me."

John Watson gaped at the man in front of him. Sherlock had the ability—no doubt—to absolutely shock the pants off you, but this… this was his best act yet. His heart was leaping in his chest. Sherlock Holmes had just asked for his hand in marriage. John felt as if his life was suddenly this romantic comedy film and at any moment a director would yell "cut!" and the scene would be over. But as the seconds blended by, there came no call and John realised that this was one hundred per cent real. He was going to marry Sherlock bloody Holmes.

"Of course," John breathed, allowing a smile to engulf his face. He laughed at the relieved look on Sherlock's face and leaned down to kiss the man soundly on the lips. He caught Sherlock's face between his hands and looked into his eyes. "Of course I will marry you, Sherlock."

Sherlock smiled and slipped the ring on John's finger, setting the box down on the table behind him. He stood up and took John with him, enveloping the doctor into an embrace. When they broke apart, Lestrade stood up and joined them.

"Bloody hell," he chuckled. "Congratulations. That's… that's really spectacular!"

"Forgive me, Lestrade," Sherlock said. "I'm sure that was…awkward for you. I just couldn't wait a moment longer."

Lestrade laughed again and then reached forward to give them each a brief hug. "Don't worry about it Sherlock," he said. "It was an honour to be a witness for that."

At that moment, Mrs Hudson came up with a tray of tea and biscuits. When they told her what had just taken place, she squealed with delight and hugged them both like a proud mother. The four of them sat down for tea, the three men wincing as the adrenaline and hormone-fuelled high began to recede and their bruises began to ache.

Every time John moved his hand, the light glinted on the polished silver band and a similar gleam was reflected in the eyes of the two men that the ring bound together.

* * *

**Huzzah! :) So, I've got a lot of pokers in the fire at the moment, not only in my personal/professional life, but also in my writing as well. I keep coming up with new story ideas and get so caught up in them that I forget to focus on the works that I've already started. So forgive my insanity and keep a weather eye out for updates, which will continue to happen even if they're more erratically timed. Your patience and support is very much appreciated. **

**On that note, I've started a break-off work of the last chapter of this story (Four Crows for a Boy). I really wanted to explore the dynamics of the relationship between Sherlock, John, and Cecil, and so I'll be posting the first part of that today as well. Check it out if you're so inclined!**


	7. Six Crows

Six Crows for Gold

_Nature's first green is gold_

_Her hardest hue to hold_

_Her early leaf's a flower_

_But only so an hour._

_Then leaf subsides to leaf_

_So Eden sank to grief_

_So dawn goes down to day,_

_Nothing gold can stay._

John Watson eased himself into the springy grass under the shade of the stately pine tree, folding his legs underneath him and resting on his knees. It was a spectacular summer's day and the hum of cicadas seemed to fit so easily with the soft breeze and the scent of freshly mown grass. John looked up into the boughs of the pine above him and watched the limbs sway gently, an errant needle or two shaking loose and dropping to the ground beside him. John smiled at the serenity and let it fill him from the inside out.

He dropped his gaze to the black marble headstone directly in front of him. His reflection stared back at him from the sleek surface, marred slightly by the gold lettering that spelled out the name of the world's only consulting detective and John's best friend. Sherlock Holmes… genius, madman, scientist, detective, musician, antagonist… the best man and the most human man John had ever met. It seemed wholly unfair that all the best things about him had been dwindled to memories, feelings, and newspaper clippings. The black marble in front of him would never know the baritone chuckles, the brilliant deductions or the soft smiles reserved only for Mrs Hudson and John.

John reached forward and touched the cool marble, letting the smooth façade dance under his fingertips. It had taken him quite a long time to be able to come here, to the cemetery where Sherlock had been buried, without feeling like his chest was going to crack in two. Now, all these years later, there was just the residual burn that was both blessing and curse. On one hand, it reminded John of how much he had missed Sherlock and how aching the pain had been. Sometimes the ache blended together with the lingering pain from his shoulder. Those days were muted agonies of physical and emotional pain. But on the other hand, the residual burn reminded John that he was very much alive.

Some may have thought it very cruel that Sherlock had stepped off the roof of that building, leaving John and their life behind, (especially those who thought that the doctor and the detective were more than just the doctor and the detective). Well, the nature of their relationship was neither here nor there, but John agreed with them for a very long time. The anger left behind after Sherlock's jump had almost consumed John, and when it was blended with the sorrow, it was overwhelming. It had taken John longer than he cared to admit to look at Sherlock's suicide and deduce his intentions, blinded as he was by the rage and the grief and that hollow feeling that envelops you when you miss someone. But Sherlock was a little too vain to simply take his own life in such a way. And there was no way on earth that his little diatribe about being a fake was true. John would never believe that, even if the detective were to rise from the grave in front of him and tell him again.

Sherlock never did anything without a reason. Aimless tasks were a waste of energy in his mind, and death would have been a very big obstacle and a very aimless task indeed, especially if it came about by his own hand. Somewhere around the year two mark, John had taken to sitting in Sherlock's armchair and trying to work his way through Sherlock's death with logic and reason. Sherlock didn't do anything without purpose. Suicide…he was too fond of himself for that. There was no way he was a fake…just no way. Ergo, he had to have stepped off the building for a reason, right? There had…had to be a reason…

John shook his head as the memories cascaded in front of his eyes like an old film reel, the pictures crackly and faded at the edges. He tried to stow the images away in his natty version of a mind palace—it was an attempt on his part to learn to categorise things and file them away so that the deluge of emotions wouldn't interfere with his ability to work at the clinic or go about his daily life. Sherlock had learned to file things away and keep them separate…even deleting things from his memories that served no purpose. But John was not like Sherlock… he'd managed to get his feelings and his memories into their boxes and cupboards in the space, but they had a tendency to spring open at the most inopportune times like a broken jack-in-the-box.

But…as much as the memories hurt sometimes and as much as John wanted to lock them away and never gaze upon them again, he clung desperately to them. Outside the walls of 221 B and outside of the small circle of people that had been Sherlock's family and friends, the world had been slowly forgetting. The world's only consulting detective was fading away to dust as people dismissed his life and his contributions. Those that were swayed easily by public opinion read the libellous news reports in the papers about the "fake genius" and thought no more of him. Those that clung stubbornly to the belief that Sherlock Holmes was real continued to do so. "I believe in Sherlock Holmes" had sprung up like an underground mantra in the streets of London. But even that had dwindled as the years passed, never fully dying out but never really staying either. They were forgetting.

John couldn't forget—wouldn't forget. Call it fate or call it coincidence, Sherlock Holmes had come into his life and changed it in the most incredible ways. John would not allow the memory of Sherlock to fade from his mind.

When the first signs of spring begin to appear in the world, is it not the most majestic of feelings? When the dawn creeps over the horizon and bathes the world in new light and banishes the darkness, is it not a feeling of renewal and hope? The buds of every new flower or leaf hold such promise in their tiny, furled existences. It is perhaps comparable to the promise held in youth. Children hold such potential in their golden days, but as their dawns fade to days, the gold seeps away. Nothing gold can stay. But the feeling of renewal is not limited to only youth; even adults find promise in new beginnings. New beginnings were golden and when Sherlock stepped into John's life (and likewise, when John limped into Sherlock's), gold overtook them both in the promises of new beginnings. But alas… nothing gold can stay.

"John?"

John Watson's eyes slid shut and a content smile edged across his face. He felt strong, lithe fingers on his shoulders and he leaned back into the graceful hands to which the fingers belonged. The digits responded to the push by curling around, one set of them reaching up to caress the back of his neck and then rest there. John hummed in satisfaction and felt a responding hum echo back through him as the owner of the fingers knelt down at his side. The thrumming baritone sound fit in perfect harmony against the hum of the cicadas.

Sherlock knelt next to John and wrapped an arm around the doctor's shoulders and the two men sat at the foot of the grave in contemplative silence. It was surreal…this doesn't happen. People don't jump off buildings and then reappear—very much alive—three years later. And yet, John leaned into the solid and very real man kneeling next to him and felt once again the sheer weight of meaning. All those years ago, their paths had crossed for the first time and John's life was turned on its head. Then, their paths diverged and John was left travelling his own path again, the gold of his new beginning fading into day. Now, by some twisted glimmer of…fate, if you lean towards that explanation, their paths merged again.

And just for once, their gold could stay.

* * *

**So, the poem at the beginning belongs to the immortal Robert Frost, but it was really made popular by The Outsiders, by SE Hinton. If you have never read that book or watched that movie, I highly recommend that you do so. Please, please do so, you'll cry your eyes out (in that weird, good way...plus, it's got Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio... aye, dios mio!)**

**Stay gold, friends. Stay gold. **


	8. Seven Crows (pt 1)

**Howdy. So technically, this is it...the final chapter of Seven Crows. However, the chapter you're about to read is... well, I don't really know where it came from. And really, it's not how I imagined ending this story. **

**That being said, we'll call this Seven Crows Part One. Part Two will be an independent thing and will have a resolution to the story that I feel in my bones. (My muse has fled to the hills... I just started a new job and I've got band/musical rehearsals out the ying yang... I'm extremely busy and my muse is an attention-whore, so... please be patient with me whilst I find a firefighter to get her out of the tree.)**

**So have at it... Seven Crows part one. :) **

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Seven Crows for a secret that's never, ever told

Sherlock Holmes was a man of many secrets, which was simultaneously surprising and predictable. It was surprising because Sherlock was a man without shame—a by-product of not caring one way or the other what 'normal' people think of you. A man who goes to Buckingham Palace in a sheet and things of that sort is hardly one for keeping secrets about himself. In truth he was usually very frank and forthcoming about himself—his likes, his dislikes (especially his dislikes), and all the things in between. Surely the people in his life were no stranger to the man's blunt and peculiar ways, in addition to each having some kind of inkling about his personal history.

But Sherlock was also a brooding, mysterious man who sometimes seemed to operate solely from the shadows of his own mind, like he was on another plane of existence from the rest of humanity entirely. He was two sides of a single coin, the yang to his own ying, dark and light in the same entity. The man who took delight in deducing everyone else's secrets had his own stashed away in little wooden crates in the darkest corners of his existence. He took great pains to ensure that no one knew about these secrets. Some of them were trivial, some of them devastating…but all of them his and his alone. Again, the people in his life were no stranger to the depth and breadth of his moods, particularly the one of heavy silence penetrated only by the whispers of the secrets he never told.

There was one secret in particular that Sherlock was particularly keen on keeping in the dark. It was a secret that frustrated and maddened him, just because of the sheer absurdity of it. There was no logical reason for him to feel this way and yet every single time he had…an encounter with his secret, he found it harder and harder to contain himself. It was highly irrational and completely unsound and yet… every happenstance left him breathless and choking on adrenaline.

Mycroft, of course, knew. He was his elder brother, for goodness sake, and Mycroft's powers of deduction were in some instances far greater than Sherlock's. There had been singular episodes during the course of their lives, but none so demonstrative as the times after Sherlock had taken in Doctor Watson as a flatmate. After John's inclusion in Sherlock's life, Mycroft had begun to notice that Sherlock was particularly more emotive and open thanks to the doctor's influence in his life. This made it far easier for Mycroft to read Sherlock's responses to… his little secret. Mycroft never mentioned a word to his little brother or anyone else, for that matter, but Sherlock was all too aware of the fact that his brother knew his secret. Vigorous blackmail had ensued on both parts but now a pact had been made between the two that the secret would remain such—a secret.

Lestrade knew. He'd worked with Sherlock for several years and with the duo of Holmes and Watson for several more on top of that. In the years that Lestrade had known Sherlock, he'd been witness to several of the man's vices and dirty secrets. In their early years it had been the cocaine. Lestrade had been a part of Sherlock's discovery and eventual recovery from the bout with the illicit drugs, promising to let Sherlock handle some cases as a consultant in return for staying clean. It had worked and their partnership had gradually grown and now assumed an ease of practise (even if—in Sherlock's opinion—they were all idiots). Sherlock's secret hadn't shown itself to Lestrade until a few months after John had joined the consulting detective in his works. Lestrade had almost missed it, but he'd grown accustomed to reading Sherlock's passive faces. Needless to say, he'd be incredibly astounded, because the sentiment was something that Lestrade wouldn't have ever really imagined from Sherlock Holmes. So, out of deference for Sherlock's privacy, Lestrade kept the secret to himself.

Molly knew. There had been an incident in the lab once, when Molly had been observing from outside the room itself, just watching the detective work. It had shocked her to see Sherlock react in such a way. She had always known that the man was inherently passionate and energetic—one could hardly argue that point seeing as how he spent an inordinate amount of time in her labs and her morgue, spending hours bent over microscopes and flogging bodies with riding crops. Underneath the exterior of enigma that he put up, there was a deeper fervour, but Molly had never once in her life expected to see him respond like that. She wondered vaguely if it had something to do with John's continued presence and steadfastness in his life, even after the Reichenbach fiasco. Molly would always be a trusted compatriot to the great Sherlock Holmes, and so she mutely kept his secret—as she had always done.

Mrs Hudson knew. It was almost inevitable that she would find out—she was his landlady, after all, in addition to being a quasi-surrogate mother figure and their housekeeper (though she always vehemently denied that). She'd accidentally stumbled upon a…happenstance one rainy Tuesday afternoon. She figured she should have started knocking at the door of 221 B, especially since Doctor Watson had moved in. She'd never seen Sherlock blush so deeply or get so flustered before. Normally, he was a passionately aloof—a contradiction of terms, perhaps, but that's the best description she had. To find him in such an agitated state, his cheeks all pink with exertion and his breathing heavy… it was quite a shock to the older woman…even if she did find it to be quite hilarious.

John found out eventually, much to Sherlock's dismay. It all came to a head one evening as they were sitting in their living room with their tea after another exciting case conclusion. It had certainly startled John to see Sherlock in such a fit of emotion outside of a triple homicide, especially considering that the man practically landed in his lap. But as usual, the doctor took everything in stride and tried to help the man (still practically in his lap) through the awkward but understandable situation. He asked Sherlock to walk him through his feelings and how long they'd been going on. John shared his thoughts on the matter with his friend in an effort to show Sherlock that he most certainly was not alone and that he needn't feel ashamed. Of course, Sherlock maintained that his feelings were illogical and completely incongruous. And of course, John maintained that feelings were feelings and not meant to be rational or logical. Sherlock had begged John to keep his secret, and John, being the good man he was, agreed.

And so it happened that all of the important figures in Sherlock's life—John, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Molly, and Mycroft—inadvertently stumbled upon one of the detective's greatest secrets. It was a secret that they would never admit they knew and it was a secret that none of them suspected the others knew. Their reason for keeping the secret was a secret that they held themselves. For Mycroft, it was blackmail, considering that his younger brother also knew some of his darker secrets. For Lestrade, it was just deference to the man's private life. For Molly, well…she'd always kept his secrets because he trusted her. For Mrs Hudson, she knew that keeping Sherlock's secrets kept him safe. And for John… Sherlock's secrets were just another facet of the amazing human being that he was. And so no one outside that circle of people would know Sherlock's irreconcilable secret.

Sherlock Holmes was deathly afraid of spiders.

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**See what I mean? It just doesn't have the resolution I wanted for this story. So be on the lookout for part two! Thank you for all of your patience and your kind words and your support. :) You keep me going even when I don't want to. **


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